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Edith Granger-Taylor
(1887 - 1958)
Small Grey Abstract, c. 1934
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Edith Granger-Taylor (1887 - 1958)
Pastel
Size:
Height – 17.5cm
Width – 17.5cm
Exhibited: Edith Granger-Taylor 1887-1958: An Artist Rediscovered, Gillian Jason Gallery, London, 1 February-3 March 1989.
Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, et al. Women Only Works on Paper. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p. 43.
Having learnt pastel from Henry Tonks whilst attending the Slade in 1919, Edith Granger-Taylor worked
almost exclusively in this medium, or crayon, for the rest of her life.
Reporting on her 1932 exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery, London, the art critic from The Scotsman wrote
that Granger-Taylor used pastel with extraordinary facility and intelligence, and designs with grace. She has a
style personal and fluent (…), full of pleasant flourishes and tricks of technique’. The writer goes on to praise
the tone and shape of Granger-Taylor’s near-abstract style, saying that the peculiar sweetness (of pastel)
proves fatal to all but draughtsmen with a strong and healthy colour sense’.
In spite of such critical reception, her increasing frustration as a female artist working in the inter-war years,
expressed in paintings such as Allegory (1934) (which she referred to as a “delicate feminist satire”) caused
Granger-Taylor to retreat from the art world, and after the 1930s her work would not be exhibited again in
her lifetime. Her remarkable abstract compositions date to the 1930s.
Edith Granger-Taylor began painting as a child, attending the
Royal Academy Schools (1910), St. John’s Wood Art School,
and the Slade School of Fine Art for a term in 1919, where she
studied under Henry Tonks. She also returned to the Slade in the
early 1930s to study stage design.
She exhibited numerously in the 1920s and 1930s, including
at the NEAC, the RE exhibition in 1935, and with solo shows at
the Grosvenor Galleries (1922) and Beaux Arts Gallery (1932).
However, her increasing frustration as a female artist working
in the inter-war years, showcased in paintings such as Allegory
(1934) (which she referred to as a “delicate feminist satire”),
caused her to retreat from the art world, and after the 1930s her
work would not be exhibited again in her lifetime.
